I am taking a knitting class right now and am finding myself at odds with the project I’m making.  Fingerless mits.  Sounds easy right?  That’s what I thought, until they subjected me to size 2 needles which are about the width of uncooked spaghetti.  I have ripped out my mistakes at least 3 times.  Ouch.

I’m what you’d call a “beginner” knitter.   I have completed a hat (one year ago) and am working on a scarf (not quite done), but when I got in the room and the teacher told me to cast on 48 times, I train wrecked it.  And not once either, but twice, which means I had to cast on 3 times.  That’s a grand total of 144 times.  (For the non-knitters out there, casting on is the way you get the yarn on the needle.  It’s a special stitch that you don’t use any other time but the beginning of a project.)

I felt  like the slow learner in the room.  No, I was the slow learner considering that the only other student in my class had been knitting for years and has made socks.  Socks!  I’m sure the instructor was glad to have Ms. Socks in the room and was inwardly rolling her eyes at  me as I cast on for the third time.

The rest of the class went fine (Ms. Socks did mess up once) but I’ve made numerous mistakes as I’ve worked on the cuff of the mit at home.  I’m somewhat getting the hang of these needles and working in the round, but I can’t say it’s been easy or relaxing.  Wasn’t that why I took the class in the first place?

Since then I have reminded myself that the reason I’m doing it is so I don’t end up doing hats and scarves for the rest of my life.  I need to learn to knit in the round (for mits and socks) and eventually on to other things (bikinis excluded).  My husband pointed out the bikini pattern in the knitting book, but there are some things you just say no to.  Besides I can’t think of anything more uncomfortable. Except, perhaps, a knit thong.  

The shop is a renovated house and their yarns are simply beautiful.  I get great joy just walking around touching all the colors and textures, imagining the sweaters and scarves and baby things that might be made.  What can I say?  I am a shopper who has to touch things.  I have a really hard time controlling myself in stores that say, “Do Not Touch the Merchandise.”  It’s like smacking your cat on the nose for playing with the catnip toy.  It’s just not right.

If nothing else, this class has inspired me to keep growing, keep doing, keep letting myself fail, even if I am embarrassed in the process.  There is something beautiful about taking risks.  It changes us in ways we cannot know.  It pushes us on to new adventures.